EVERYTHING THAT COULD GO WRONG . . .

Okay, I'm starting a list of everything that's been wrong or broken around the house for the last several weeks or months. (Followed by a few miraculous triumphs!)

1) Stupid air conditioner
For weeks I couldn't control the temperature. The control knob seemed to be out of touch with reality.

Day after day the intricate control mechanism inside -- I envisioned something like a 17-jewel Swiss clock -- got worse and worse, just flopping around, slipping and sliding. Then it got so sloppy I couldn't turn the damn thing on or off. It seemed to be too loose, as if something inside had disintegrated.

My solution was to find a setting - after much manipulation - that seemed to work. Then I left the controls alone. When I wanted to run it I just plugged it in or unplugged it as needed. Not daring to mess around with the 17-jewel control system inside, you see, for fear it would become inoperable forever.

But then I made a fatal mistake. I decided to try once more to see if by using my mental powers I could somehow make that knob catch hold in there and go click or something and then it would work just fine.

Nope. When I turned the knob this time the game was up. It just spun around and nothing happened.

A new AC (500 bucks) seemed to be the only answer.

Then I noticed that the knob itself was loose. I pulled on it and it popped out in my hand. What do you know? The bejeweled mechanism inside was nothing more than a cheap plastic thingee with a slot on the end. The plastic was broken.

I took a small pair of low-tech pliers, poked the jaws in there, grabbed something that looked like it might do something, and turned it around. Zoom, whir whir. The cold air poured out. Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!

I went down and bought a new knob. A buck ninety-eight.

HOW TO MAKE A STOCK POT IN THE BRITISH ARMY

A famous practical joke among chefs is to tell a young cook to make her soups and gravies out of "pipe stock."
She's heard about stock and knows that no decent culinary artistry can be accomplished without a stock pot। But she’s never heard of pipe stock.

While all the cooks, bakers and even the dishwashers are chuckling behind their hands she runs around the kitchen looking for a can of pipe stock, can't find any and is afraid to ask।

What is pipe stock? Well, it is the liquid that comes out when you turn on the faucet। In other words, it is plain water. Pipe stock is used by madmen, assassins and others whose ambition is to destroy civilization.

Let me tell you how I found out about stock pots. In 1951 as a young army private just out of cook school, I was assigned to work at the Officers Club at the Presidio in San Francisco. Army cooks would kill to get a cushy post like this. I fell into the job by accident. The joke was I didn't know how to cook beans, or anything else.
All I knew was how to keep a mess hall clean, which was the main subject hammered into the minds of young cooks at the 6th Army Cooks & Bakers School।

We were taught how to avoid poisoning the troops, that is, how to keep grease and flies out of the food.
To be sure we understood the importance of this subject, we were shown frightening movies about the horrors of disease caused by flies and how the trots had put an entire British Regiment out of action at Waterloo.
How we got a movie on the British Black Watch laid up with the trots I don't know
It was frightening to hear the announcer -- in a cultivated British accent, no less -- tell us in sickening detail how one cook's disregard of flies and grease nearly resulted in a disaster of massive proportions।

अ
Apparently the British troops got horribly, horribly sick at the battle of Waterloo -- the Brits always get more horribly sick than the soldiers of other nations -- and they nearly got wiped out by Napoleon or somebody। The Frenchies didn't have the trots so they weren't constantly leaving their guns unattended while they hastened to the latrine.

The point I started to make here, before I went off on a tangent about the British Black Watch, is that the Army did not teach me how to cook। The most glaring omission in my training was the subject of STOCK POTS। The Army did not even teach me what a stock pot was, let alone how to make one.

FOUND MY STOCK POT IN SAN FRANCISCO
My introduction to the stock pot begins in San Francisco at the Presidio army base। How I ended up at in San Francisco is a story in itself. You see, our entire company was about to be shipped off to a post in the middle of the Arizona desert, a terrible outpost manned by doomed devils a hundred miles distant from the nearest town. A fate worse than death for a bunch of boulevardiers like us.

Then in a terrific stroke of luck just before we were to be shipped out of our highly desired post, the sergeant asked if there was anyone in the company who had prior civilian experience in restaurants.
Well, since I didn't want to be posted out in the wilderness and since I had once worked as a busboy at Wilson's Little Cafeteria in Palo Alto, California I immediately put up my hand। Oh yes, I was well experienced.

"Okay, private," said the sergeant, "you're gonna stay here in San Francisco and go to work at the Officers Club। You'll have private quarters and work a five-day week with weekends off. Besides that, you'll get separate rations and extra money. The rest of you slow-witted sad sacks are going to Fort Wauchuka. That's out in the desert. Nothing but rocks and gila monsters. No weekends off, either. You'll love it."

My first morning on the job at the O Club I arrived early and began investigating the stove, trying to figure out how to turn on the fires under the grill। It was a mystery.

The Filipino waiter stood there watching me। He shook his head and said, "Oh, you need training!" How right he was.

You get the idea? I knew

Later that morning chef Jimmy Yolef arrived and went to work। I watched him closely to see if I could learn anything.

The first thing I found out was that he had a big STOCK POT। But that was all he allowed me to learn by watching him work. He stood very close to the stove while he worked, spreading his arms and elbows so that I couldn't see what he was doing.

I was practically hopping up and down trying to see over his shoulders and under his elbows to see if I could learn something। It was hopeless. "Why should I teach you anything?" he told me. "You'll be gone in a year and I'll still be here."

Taking care of business!
It was absolutely amazing to me how with a few swift motions while banging pots around Jimmy could suddenly produce gravies and soups and stews। Today I know it was because he took care of his stock pot and knew how to use it.

To make your own stock for soups and gravies, here's what you do:

Take your biggest soup pot and put in a couple soup bones, some chopped celery, carrots and onions, a bay leaf or two, and maybe a couple garlic cloves।

Next fill the pot with cold water and bring it to a simmer without boiling। Let it simmer for five hours or so -- overnight is better -- until the savory flavor of the bones is released and the tough connective tissue of the bones becomes very tender, like jelly.

During the simmering process
Occasionally skim off the fat and albumen that rise to the surface। When the volume of liquid reduces from evaporation, pour in a little cold water to return the liquid to its original level.

By the way if you have a roast chicken carcass handy, don’t be afraid to toss that in। Super!

Next morning when the stock pot is ready, strain the liquid into another pot and skim off the fat। Throw away the bones and vegetables.

If you have done your job right -- never allowing your stock pot to boil hard -- the stock should be a semi-clear liquid, a light amber color।

During your workday, leave the stock on the stove over a very low fire so that it is available to make tasty stews, gravies and soups।

Meanwhile during your workday, if you collect some meat scraps and perhaps the drippings from a roast or two, be sure to add those excellent flavorings to the stock pot।

And of course (ha ha) remember to stand close to the stove with your shoulders hunched and your elbows poked out so the troops can't see what you're doing। That’s a joke, son.

Dem bones, dem bones!
By the way, knowledgeable cooks scrape the beef marrow out of the cooked beef bones and spread that delicacy on toast with a little salt for a delightful snack।

The jellied tendons are tasty too. Just use your fingers. ##
Chef Vince

WORLD’S GREATEST GOLFER SOUNDS OFF

THINK BIG -- ONCE AGAIN WORLD’S GREATEST GOLFER HAS SPOKEN

Some sniveling loser is always trying to suck up by telling me I'm the greatest golfer on the planet.

Hell, I know that. But these pathetic losers always think small; that's why they are such pathetic losers.

It never occurs to these pathetic losers that my domination of the game may encompass the entire galaxy. Pathetic losers can't think that big — even when the incredible fury of my swing drives those poor balls out into the unknowable black void of space from which none can return.

The reason the balls don't return is probably because I hit 'em so hard they go into Earth orbit, maybe entirely beyond the clutch of Earth's gravitational pull. I am investigating this sober (sober!) theory.

Besides, it’s more fun than looking in the bushes under all those black mambas. ##
Seekers of truth may prostrate themselves at: longknocker101@yahoo.com

THE WORLD'S SLOWEST PITCHER

A SUMMER'S MYTHIC BASEBALL HAPPENING IN THE DIMLY REMEMBERED DAYS OF YOUTH.

Muley Mulholland had two pitches: a fast ball and a change-up. His fast ball was not what sportswriters might describe as a lightning bolt, but at least you could be pretty sure it would eventually arrive at the plate.

On the other hand his change-up, or what opposing players called his snail ball, took forever to reach the batter. Time stopped when Muley threw that snail ball

Batters got unnerved watching Muley wind up his elongated frame in preparation for the delayed release of one of his tantalizing teasers.

The faultless flinger’s body seemed composed entirely of elbows and knees supporting a tiny head with flyaway ears that sometimes flapped in a high wind, and a beaky schnozz, whose magnificent protuberance he employed as an aiming device as he peered down its sloping grandeur at the batter.

The suspense of waiting for Muley's reluctant horsehide was unbearable. Batters could bend over and tie their shoelaces while awaiting his tardy toss.

HOW THE BIG FIGHT STARTED

On the fateful day I am about to tell about in its full horror, Muley was pitching against the Menlo Park Crusaders, and they hadn’t lost a game all summer. The Crusaders were not baseball team, they were a mob, a gang of street fighters and bad boys with brass knuckles in their pockets.

The Menlo baseball players had never seen Muley’s stuff before. On that hot summer day it was astounding the agony those poor batters went through just waiting for one of Muley’s pitches to arrive at the plate.

The big fight started in the top of the ninth with the Menlo Crusaders at bat. We were ahead one to nothing and they had two outs with a runner on second.

Ferdinand Osrowski, Menlo's big cleanup hitter, was their last chance to score. The Menlo Park slugger hadn’t been able to touch Muley all day and I knew trouble was coming when he strode up to the plate with two away and one on. His red eyes flashed under his heavy dark eyebrows. I knew he figured for sure he had Muley’s change-up timed and was ready to jump all over it.

But I’d seen what Muley’s leisurely lobs could do to these cocky power hitters. It was the waiting that drove them nuts.

Ferdinand Ostrowski’s teammates hollered insults and taunts from the dugout, razzing Muley, trying to rattle him. “Hey, Snail Nose! Put some mustard on that ball. We ain’t got all night!. Your Mom’s prob’ly still waitin’ for ya to get borned. This ain’t baseball. What’re you throwing out there, marshmallows? This is flat embarrassin’. Ya shoulda throw’d that pitch last Tuesday - maybe it’d be gettin there by now.”

ON THAT DUSTY AFTERNOON, in the glare of the July sun I crouched at shortstop and waited for Ostrowski’s blast, Sweat streamed down and burned my eyes. I edged over to Freddie, a short, round little kid playing third base. I told Freddie, “I’ve seen this guy swing a baseball bat. He can knock it downtown, but if he gets a hernia swinging at Muley’s change-up, there’s gonna be trouble. When the fight starts, I’ll create a diversion. Then you run around and grab all our baseball equipment so it don’t get lost in the fracas. Grab our baseball bat, the bases, everything.”

“Okay,” said Freddie. “I know the routine.”

"Hubba, hubba, hubba,” yelled Miles Lang, the tall redheaded kid in center field.

“No batter no batter no batter," yelled Bent Nose Bozzo crouched behind the plate.

It all became a roaring in my ears, made me feel a little dizzy. I shook my head, splashing sweat in the dirt.

Muley wasted a fast ball, high and outside. Ferdinand Ostrowski calmly studied its approach for a long moment, then leaned back on his bat and inspected his nails as it floated toward Bent Nose Bozzo’s mitt. “Swing, batter, swing,” screamed Bent Nose.

“Ball wuun!” cried the ump.

Ostrowski regarded the angular pitcher with disdain and spat in the dirt. “That the slowest pitch you got, you pin-headed creep? Lemme see that change-up of yours, I’ll show you what a ballplayer can do to it!”

The imperturbable flinger went into his elaborate windup, which took a couple of minutes right there, and delicately released one of his snail balls.

Spellbound under the cessation of time, we waited as the baseball drifted like a child’s bubble toward Ostrowski. Red-faced, veins pulsing in his bull neck, the enraged batter pounded on the plate and stamped his size fourteen high-top brogans in the dirt sending up a cloud of dust.

WOULD COSMIC FORCES INTERVENE?

Now I actually feared that the Celestial Keepers of Right and Wrong -- ever alert to any violation of the immutable laws of baseball -- would move in and take over, perhaps to STRIKE! should their intervention be required to balance out the steady progression of Earth's happenings.

In the trees, birds ceased twittering and hopped about frantically, aware that all was not right in their avian universe. Gophers dived down their burrows.

Ferdinand Ostrowski drew back his terrible bludgeon ready to unleash forces unknown to mortal man’s primitive grasp of physics. The very universe seemed to hold its breath.

“Swing, batter, swing!” yelled Bent Nose Bozzo, pounding his fist into his glove.

In great suspense we waited.

Out in centerfield, Miles Lang, whose eyesight was not that great anyway, adjusted his bifocals, brushed his red hair from his eyes and drifted back until he bumped his head on the fence and dropped to the grass momentarily stunned.

In the blazing heat of that mid-summer day, Muley Mulholland’s challenge against the eternal laws of space and time drifted toward Bent Nose’s baseball mitt,

In the timeless vacuum, puzzled neighborhood dogs ran in circles, barking and panting in protest against they knew not what. The drone of bees altered to a higher pitch.

Out in center, Miles propped himself up on an elbow and held up his glove to shield his eyes from the sun, or perhaps to protect his head against a line drive.

In the hot corner at third, unable to stand the suspense, Freddie’s nerve broke. He deserted his base and hopped over the foul line out of the line of fire.

Now Ferdinand Ostrowski’s nerve broke too. Dead set on crushing the baseball into eternity. and unable to wait any longer, he hopped and scuttled toward the mound to meet Muley‘s tardy offering, Still he couldn’t quite reach it. Cursing and waving his bat, the muscular Crusader continued hopping his clodhoppers closer to the mound until, at last, the change-up crawled within reach.

“Swing, batter, swing!” screamed Bent Nose Bozzo.

“Now I got it,” roared Ferdinand. He drew his bat back, back, back until his bones popped, then then cut loose at the baseball in what I feared would be a game-winning wallop.

BUT NO! His timing off, he was a little out in front of the ball. The friction of his swing set the air on fire. Smoke curled over the field and darkened the sky. Terrible forces of nature cried out in protest against the vacuum created by the passage of his baseball bat. Masses of displaced sir slammed back together to fill the void, producing a sonic BOOM!

The force of the swing tore the blackened and smoking Louisville Slugger from his grasp. What was left of the baseball bat hummed through the air like a child’s toy and crashed through the left field fence into Mr. Smither’s backyard. I saw old man Smithers waving the smoking remnant over the top of the fence.

“You booyys,” I heard him faintly screaming. “Balls you hit over here break my windows. Then you trample my flower beds. Now you throw baaats and try to set fire to my fenncce!”

“Steerike wunn,” cried the ump.

Ostrowski grabbed another baseball bat and pounded it on the plate, preparing for what I feared would be a cataclysmic blast.

But Muley’s next offering fooled the Menlo bomber too. Instead of the expected change-up, it was Muley’s fast ball that now rushed toward the plate at a few feet per second faster than his slow pitch. And Ostrowski, not recognizing the rapidity of the pill’s flight, glared his contempt at the pitch and spat in the dust. He turned away and strolled over to the water fountain for a drink.

To his teammates hunkered down in the dugout sharpening their spikes, he growled, “When that pitch gets here I’m gonna knock it clean into the next county!”

But the Menlo bomber had badly misjudged the velocity of the ball. Just as he stepped back into the batter’s box there was the soft plop of the ball nestling into Bent Nose Bozzo’s glove.

“Hey,” he said, scratching his head. “How’d that ball get here so quick? I was only gone about a hour.”

“Steeriike two,” hollered the ump.

Ostrowski buried his head in his broad shoulders. Smoke poured from his ears. He dug his spikes in deep. He seemed to grow from the earth like some massive stone flung there from outer space. His howling mouth was larger than his face. He pounded his bat on the plate in a frenzy of anticipation. THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! Actual tears of rage splashed on home plate.

OSTROWSKI'S FINAL THREAT

“Throw me that creepy pitch of yours again,” he howled. “I dare ya. And I ain’t leaving till it gets here neither!”

I waved everybody back until nobody was left in the infield but me and Muley and Bent Nose Bozzo. The rest of the guys were lined up against the fence. With a look of scorn, Muley went into his windup and released the slowest pitch of his career.

Inch by inch the ball crept toward home plate, gently shoving aside stubborn molecules of air. From the field, our guys hollered "hubba hubba" and "hum-baby" and "no batter, no batter, no batter!"

Neighborhood dogs, baffled by this warpage of time in their finely structured world of "Come and go, sit and beg, fetch and return," ceased barking and began howling at this new mystery in dogdom.

Meanwhile in rage and frustration, the veins popping on his neck, Ferdinand Ostrowski crouched lower at the plate, pounding his bat, hitching up his pants, jamming his cap down over his ears, readjusting his jock.

Blackness descends on the field!

Dizzy, my head spinning in a world gone black I pounded my mitt and backed up another couple of inches. I couldn’t understand why the infield was so dark until I realized I was holding my breath and my brain had simply shut down from lack of oxygen.

Meanwhile, the umpire, his knees wobbling from the prolonged period of stooped attention behind the plate while peering through his sweat-blurred eyes at the ball’s leisurely approach, suddenly rolled up his eyes and tumbled forward over Bent Nose Bozzo and sprawled across the plate, out cold from heat stroke.

Ferdinand reached down with one hand and dragged the unconscious arbiter off to the side and dropped him in the dirt like a pile of dirty laundry. He jumped back in the box and banged his Louisville Slugger on the plate.

“We don’t need no ump,” he bawled. “I don’t care where this next pitch is, it’s gonna get outta here!” His barrel chest heaved with the effort required to suck in enough oxygen to support his prolonged preparation for the historic swat. His voice screeched like a rusty door. “Oh, when that ball gets here I’m gonna do somethin’ awful. Oh, just wait!”.

The built up pressure of the delayed rip became so great he could no longer delay the assault. His back, already twisted so far around that the barrel of the bat was pointing at Muley, now got torqued around one more notch. At that impossible angle it looked to me like his back might break.

Now once more Ostrowski grimly hopped sideways to meet the approaching horsehide. Teeth clenched, spitting saliva, panting with desire, his size fourteen spikes stamping in the dust, he howled his evil intention. “I got it! I got it now! Look out, World!"

I knew that a voice in his head was telling him "NOW! NOW! NOW IS THE MOMENT!"

Our youthful diamond drama was almost played out!

The mighty Menlo bomber swung. The earth moved. Trees bent to the ground. Neighborhood dogs ceased howling and crawled under their houses to cower in the dark. Housewives slammed their kitchen windows. Far north in Canada a moose - its jaws full of dripping lily pads - lifted an inquiring head. What new disturbance was this?

SOMETHING HAD TO GIVE

And and what gave was Ferdinand’s back. I heard a loud pop! and the Menlo slugger dropped to the ground. “My back! Oh,my back,” he cried out. “Did I nail it, guys? Did I get a piece of it?”

HOW THE FIGHT STARTED

Ferdinand’s teammates poured out of the dugout and charged Muley, which stone-faced stalwart calmly removed his glove and put up his dukes to defend himself against the approaching mob of bat waving assassins from Menlo Park.

As it turned out the big slugger had indeed gotten a piece of the ball. I had watched the object of his hate shoot straight up until it was a mere dot in the blue, and it continued to rise until it vanished. On that summer afternoon, although it is unrecorded in the books, the Menlo bomber had hit the highest popup in history.

As the melee swirled in the dust around the stiff-punching figure of our master of the delayed delivery. I suddenly shouted a command: “Stop! According to the rule book, the play is still in continuance!”

This formal quotation from the rule book stopped the fight. The Menlo hoods whirled around to me. “Huh? Whaddaya mean? You can’t stop no fight with some dumb rule book. Ain’t you got no historical perspective?”

I pointed skyward and calmly stated:

“The ball is still in play. Rule X-19, (revised 1902) clearly states that ‘Play shall continue until the flight of the ball is arrested by a celestial object or until it returns from outer space.’”

Dumbfounded by this official-sounding interruption of their historic right to strike back at the forces of evil, the Menlo Park mob smacked their brass knuckled fists in their hands and waved their bats. They gathered on the mound and squinted upward, shading their eyes while searching the blue vault of heaven for their teammate’s historic clout.

Having distracted their attention, I reached into the mob and pulled Muley out to safety.

Meanwhile, Freddie and Bent Nose raced around grabbing our equipment. “What about my ball,” Freddie complained. “It didn’t come down yet!”

“Never mind that,” I said. “We’ll get it later. Trust me.”

Carrying our equipment, all four of us raced to centerfield, alerted our teammates to the happening and leaped over the fence.

RECORDED FOR ALL TIME!

Today, two brass plaques immortalize that incident of our youth. Chiseled in the first plaque embedded behind the pitcher’s mound are the words: “From this spot Muley Muholland delivered the slowest pitch in history. It never arrived at the plate.”

The second plaque sunk in the ground at the spot where Ferdinand Ostrowski took his final rip, states: “From this hallowed spot, Ferdinand Ostrowski hit the world’s highest popup. It never came down.”

Actually, the message on that second plaque is not quite accurate. The ice-coated baseball did come down next morning - and I was there to catch it for the third out.

Besides, we needed Freddie’s ball for the rest of the season. ##
vince johnson
vgjohnson@gmail.com

GREAT KITCHEN DISASTERS

IN WHICH A FIRE-BREATHING CLERIC SAVES CHEF AUGUST ESCOFFIER'S IMPORTANT STATE BANQUET FROM DESTRUCTION

What can a cook do when, as it must in the fragile career of all cooks, disaster strikes? The famous French chef August Escoffier recommended the following strategy:

When you have worked all day to prepare a culinary masterpiece for an important guest but your masterpiece has been ruined by one of the incompetent assassins on your staff, you can protect your reputation ahead of time by never naming anything until after you've cooked it. This way, the brilliant chef remarked, nobody can criticize your work because they don't know what you started out to cook in the first place.

Quick wit saves gummy rice disaster!

"Of course the rice is gummy, your highness" the great Escoffier once remarked to a disgruntled king, “Of course it's all lumpy and stuck together. What you fail to realize is that I was not making pilaf at all, I was making rice balls, which by their very nature must stick together!"

But suppose your dining room is filled with knowledgeable epicures at an important state dinner, and they know all about Escoffier's old trick. And they have already tortured you into revealing at the very outset what you were preparing for this important state dinner? What then?

One turkey disaster coming right up!

For example, suppose you have already admitted that you were preparing a turkey dinner with all the fixings but then at the last minute you are confronted with the worst culinary disaster known to man, an underdone, bloody turkey.

Disgruntled king sends in the army!

Royalty, when served raw turkey in a foreign land, have been known to swirl their cloaks over their shoulders, stomp from the dining room, leap into their carriage, clatter to the coast, sail across the ocean and command their merciless generals to invade the offending cook's country, pillaging and laying waste to entire cities just to make sure they get the incompetent fool who served them that damned raw turkey.

Wah! I want my bloody turkey!

But, suppose you’ve got a turkey in the oven when Prince Charles pops in (you know how the British are always popping in) and Charlie is so hungry he bloody well wants to eat right now.

As soon as Charlie sits down he starts pounding his utensils on the table in full dramatization of a royal snit. But sacre bleu! you discover to your horror that the bloody bird is not done. What to do?

Solution:
Remove the turkey from the roasting pan. Next, pour boiling broth in the empty roasting pan about an inch deep and put the pan over a hot fire and bring it to a boil.

Now!
While the broth is boiling, hack off the drumsticks and the wings of that bird and slice off the breasts. Break off the whole hind end of the carcass and mash it down with all your weight, breaking its back and flattening it out.

Next!
Put the whole dismembered carcass: drumsticks, wings, breasts and hind end into the boiling broth. All bloody-side down.

I can assure you that in a matter of minutes that bird will be cooked and you can slice it up in the kitchen out of sight and then present the sliced turkey artfully arranged on a large platter, thus escaping Charlie's wrath, which if not pacified would probably have meant sending YOU to the dungeons to get the old bloody turkey treatment yourself, as described above in ghastly detail: break the cook's back, smash his hind end, yada yada.

"I WANT MY DIN DIN!"

But suppose Prince Charlie is rattling his sword demanding instant service, and also suppose that he further demands that the turkey be presented at the dinner table stuffed and splendidly WHOLE, now there is only one thing to do: you must do what the brilliant August Escoffier once did in an emergency when he was caught with a raw turkey:

The wily Frenchman shoved the bird back in the oven and turned the fire wide open. Then he persuaded a fire-breathing parson to deliver a half hour of grace.

So powerful was the cleric's oratory that diners later remarked they could actually feel the heat of hellfire. Of course it was the heat from Escoffier’s blazing oven.

The bird got done just in time.

All done, kids.
vgjohnson@gmail.com

WHERE HAVE ALL THE COOKS GONE?

COOKING ON THE GOLF COURSE

WALTER THOMPSON is a broken down cook, a tall, skinny boozer who never saved his money. Now in his seventies and lacking the energy to cope with the demands of busy commercial kitchens, he has abandoned his stoves and taken an undemanding job as a dishwasher to supplement his social security check.

"You should see those cooks over there at that joint," he told me. "I mean, it's unbelievable. Last Friday there's four of them walking around the kitchen all morning, talking and jabbering to each other. Come lunch time, Millie, she's our best waitress, rushes up to one of the line cooks and says, 'Where's the clam chowder?' The cook comes back in the kitchen and hollers 'Where's the clam chowder?'

"It was like a comedy, each one wanting to know if the other one had made the clam chowder. They had all morning to make it, but no one was in charge. I don't know how they can run a restaurant that way. Someone's gotta be watching the store, you know?"

"They didn't have any soup at all?" I said.

THE SECRET OF MINESRONE

"Oh, yeah, they had minestrone. We have that every Friday. The way they make the minestrone is they just take a big soup pot and dump in all the leftover soups from the week, all the leftover spaghetti too, and mix it all up and bring it to a boil and that's how they make their minestrone. I taught 'em how to do that. 'Cept I called it icebox soup.

"But on Fridays, you know, if you're half-way civilized you gotta have clam chowder. I never worked in a restaurant that didn't have clam chowder on Fridays. But these shoemakers just forgot about it. Nobody in charge — see what I mean? Then, come lunch time they're all running around saying they didn't know it was Friday. It wasn't like that in my day. Where have all the cooks gone?"

"Well," I asked, "did they get the chowder made?"

"Finally, yeah. I helped 'em out. One of 'em comes running back from the storeroom and says there ain't any clam soup base. So, a new calamity. These kids don't even know they've got everything they need right back in the storeroom. Good God, they've got canned clams, clam juice, you name it — and these jokers think they've gotta have clam base. I don't know where they get their training."

"Yeah," I admitted, "it's a hard job to learn."

THE TWO SECRET SEASONINGS

Walter made a face. "Hell, I just don't think there's any cooks coming up anymore. They don't want to learn. It ain't like it's a profession with them. They won't even read a book on it. Take this one shoemaker — the other day he's got this great big pot of spaghetti sauce and he's stirring it with a big wooden paddle, and I see him tasting it and tasting it. Finally, he comes over to me — he knows I used to cook — and he tells me he just can't seem to make it taste right."

Walter shakes his head and goes on, "So I taste it for him and it's real flat. I reach down in the bins, grab a handful of sugar and some salt and dump it in. The kid is amazed. He never thought of anything that simple. He thought he didn't have enough exotic herbs in it. Now he tastes it and thinks I'm a miracle worker.

GOTTA PART YOUR HAIR RIGHT

"Probably, next week, "Walter continued, "this guy will go out and try selling insurance for a while. Cooking was never a profession to him. He didn't even know there was anything there to learn. I can watch a cook work for two minutes and tell you if he’s a professional or not. It’s a certain way he holds a knife, a certain way he chops up vegetables. Maybe it’s the way he wears his apron, the way he walks or parts his hair. I can always tell."

"Well, Walter," I said, "why don't you take a cooking job there, maybe straighten the place out?"

"Naw, I don't want to work that hard anymore with all that responsibility. I had my day. Sometimes I think maybe I oughta step in and take charge — and you know I could do it — but then I get to thinking, ah, nuts, I don't want to do it anymore. Where's all the chefs we used to have who could walk into a kitchen and make it snap and crackle, make it a place you'd be proud to work in?"

I don't know," I said, "maybe they're all computer programmers now."

I teed up and suffered through his interminable comments on my stance, my grip, my hat. When he finally ran out of chatter, I sliced the ball over by the flag pole.

"Not bad for an old broken down cook," he cackled.

"I just wish you worked in my kitchen, smart guy. I'd take some of that starch out of your hat real quick."

"Hah!" said Walter, "I wouldn't work in no kitchen they'd let you in."

We walked up to our drives and I asked him, "How's that restaurant doing, otherwise?"

THE SECRET OF POACHED EGGS

Walter made a noise with his lips. "Get this! I'm workin' the other day, pearl diving, and this same cook comes up to me and says him and this other cook are having a big argument over what you put in the water to poach eggs. One of 'em says you put vinegar in it, the other one says, no, you gotta put in some lemon juice and maybe some salt and oil. And he asks me what I put in my poaching water. I mean, can you believe this? Where do cooks get these ideas?"

As he continued his non-stop chatter, I carefully lined up my shot and knocked it over in the bushes. "See what you made me do?" I complained. "Talking while I'm hitting."

"Nuts," Walter retorted. "You just don't have no talent." Then he went on about the kitchen. "Anyway, this incompetent assassin wants to know what I put in the poaching water and I tell him I don't put nothin' in it. If you've got half-way fresh eggs you don't need to put anything in the water.

WHAT? NOTHING IN THE WATER?

"'Oh, no,' this cook says, 'you gotta put something in the water!'

"So I tell him if he knows all that, what's he asking me for? These young cooks," he continued disgustedly, "they hear something as a great tip - like doctoring up their poaching water - and from then on they swear by it and don't never investigate. So I tell this young greaseburner that all he has to do is take his skimmer and swirl the water — get it moving in a circle before he puts the eggs in. Then the swirling water pulls the whites together so they don't spread out all over. You don't have to put nothin' in the water."

"Good thing you told me," I said. "I don't know all those little professional tricks."

"You probably don't. I don't know how you manage to hang on to a chef's job, being' as dumb as you are." He sliced a three-wood into the woods and stomped in after it. I heard whacking sounds and saw dirt flying for about five minutes. He emerged from the woods wearing an innocent expression and said, "I guess I lay about two, don't I?"

LIARS ON THE GOLF COURSE

"Two! You were gone fifteen minutes, and you come out of the woods with your clubs all banged up and dirt all over your hat and tell me you're only layin' two?"

"OK. Three, maybe." He stopped talking long enough to hit a high fade that bounced off a boulder and landed on the green.

"Whoohoo!" Walter cried. "I hope you took notes on that swing. Did anybody get any pictures? I mean, am I good or what?"

"It was adequate, I guess."

"Adequate? What are you talkin' about? That was a wonderful shot. I cooked that baby. See, what I did was, I powerfully rotated my hands as I moved into the hitting area. In the furnace-like heat of the moment of truth, I poured the coal to 'er. You know, just like I poach my eggs."

All this chatter took place while I was shankng a five-iron into the bushes.

"You didn't powerfully rotate your hands!" Walter cried. "No wonder you can't poach eggs!" ##

THE SECRET OF THE GOLF SWING

It looks like my problem with the golf swing has finally been solved — and by the oldest, simplest advice in the world:

KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BACK OF THE BALL AND HIT THE HELL OUT OF IT!

HERE IS THE ONLY REFINEMENT:
As you take your stance, turn your head a bit to the right and look at the back of the ball. By keeping your head turned a bit to the right, it will be easier to keep your eyes on the ball and keep your head still while you hit down and through the ball with the ferocity of an enraged gorilla.

Remember, your head is attached to your shoulders. When the head goes up, so do the shoulders, which of course brings the hands up too, and that’s why you top the ball and hit that low, skittering shot that kills your score.

So keep your eye on the back of the ball. Then just make your swing and let the ball get in the way of the terrible blow.

After all this careful instruction, don’t come crying to me if you go out there and stink up the course.

Once again the sage of Auburn has spoken. Now quit bothering me.

Vince